Ross's first shipment of materials to the Ransom Center accompanied her husband
Stanley Young's papers, and consisted of Ross's literary output to 1975,
including manuscripts, publications, and research materials. The second,
posthumous shipment contained manuscripts created since 1974, and all her
correspondence, personal, and financial files, as well as files concerning the
estate of Stanley Young.

Processed by

Rufus Lund, 1992-1993; completed by Joan Sibley, 1994
Processing note: Materials from the 1975 and 1986 shipments are grouped
following Ross's original order, with the exception of pre-1970, special, and
current correspondence which were interfiled during processing. An index of
selected correspondents follows at the end of this inventory.

Repository:

Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin

Nancy Wilson was born in Olympia, Washington, on November 22, 1901. She graduated
from the University of Oregon in 1924, and married Charles W. Ross of Auburn,
New
York, three years later. They studied at the Bauhaus in Germany 1931-33, then
returned to live in New York City for four years. From 1938 to 1942 they lived
on
Hood Canal in Washington State. Her second marriage was to publisher and playwright
Stanley Young in 1942. They made their home on the Whitney estate 'Applegreen,'
Old
Westbury, Long Island.

As Nancy Wilson, her first published novel was Friday to
Monday (1932). Her first magazine story had appeared in 1924. She
published five novels of contemporary life and culture under the name of Nancy
Wilson Ross, illustrating the experience, the developing self-knowledge, and the
spiritual growth of her characters. The novels include Take
the Lightning (1940), The Left Hand Is the
Dreamer (1947), I, My Ancestor (1950),
Time's Corner (1952), and The Return of Lady Brace (1957). Culminating years of interest in Asian
religion and art, her last three books introduced Buddhism to Western readers:
The World of Zen: an East-West Anthology (1960),
Three Ways of Asian Wisdom (1966), and Buddhism, a Way of Life and Thought (1980). In addition,
she wrote about the Pacific Northwest in The Farthest Reach
(1941) and about the pioneer settlers of that region in Westward the Women (1944). Joan
of Arc (1952), Thor's Visit to the Land of Giants
(1959), and Heroines of the Early West (1960)
are the books she wrote for juvenile readers. Throughout her career Ross had many
articles and reviews published in such magazines as Harper's
Bazaar, The New Yorker, and The New
York Times Book Review.

Ross served on the board of the Asia Society from its founding by John D. Rockefeller
III in 1956 until 1985. She was an inspiring and life-long friend to many: faculty
at the University of Oregon from the 1920s; a circle of artists, dancers, and
actors
associated with Dartington Hall in Devon and the Cornish School in Seattle from
the
1930s; and an intellectual set in New York City that included Mary and Paul Mellon
from the 1930s and 40s. Through her husband Stanley Young's career associates
and
her own literary successes, Ross engendered friendships with a number of New York
editors, publishers, and theatre people.

Ross and her husband Stanley Young sold their personal and literary papers to the
University of Texas in 1972. The sale was enabled by a matching grant for purchase
and cataloging from the Avon (later Jerome) Foundation.

After her husband's death in 1975, Ross was increasingly involved with Buddhism.
During the last ten years of her life a member of the San Francisco Zen Center
shared her house and helped organize her papers. Ross died Jan. 18, 1986, in Vero
Beach, Florida.

Early drafts and working manuscripts of fourteen published books and an unpublished
first novel, manuscripts or publication copies of her short stories, poetry,
articles, and reviews, notes and tapes of her lectures and an interview, along
with
a supplementary file of correspondence with literary agents and publishers document
her writing career. Ross's scouting duties for C. V. Whitney Pictures, Inc.,
1954-56, are documented by correspondence and readers' reports.

The correspondence also contains letters concerning the Bauhaus in the Lyonel
Feininger, Mira and Armin Lührs, and 'German Letters' files. Paul Klee is
represented by a few letters and by Ross's piece in Five
Essays on Paul Klee (1950). Letters and publications describing
Dartington Hall, an experimental center in theatre, dance, crafts, and agriculture,
exist in correspondence with the founders, Leonard and Dorothy Whitney Elmhirst,
1937-74.

Correspondence, organization records, and publications represent Ross's participation
on the boards of the Asia Society, the Tibetan Foundation, the Martha Graham
Foundation, on the Authors Guild Council, her membership in the Cosmopolitan Club
(New York), and her association with the San Francisco Zen Center. There are
extensive files on Zen Buddhism in the United States in the Association series,
including newsletters and reports, and much individual correspondence with members
of the San Francisco Zen Center, including its leaders Richard Baker and Yvonne
Rand, 1968-83.

The Ross Papers came to the Harry Ransom Center in 1975, accompanied by a box list
(see folder 235.9), and comprising mostly literary manuscripts. A final shipment
arrived after her death in 1986, without inventory, containing literary work after
1975, all her personal correspondence, and financial records.

Original order was maintained in processing to the extent that series and subseries
roughly reflect Ross's organization in file cabinets and in her 1975 shipment.
Current and back correspondence were interfiled in processing. Oversize materials
are housed in flat boxes, approximately following the main box number sequence.

In 1993 the manuscripts and correspondence were treated by the diethyl zinc
deacidification process. The contents of boxes 9, 16-18, 34-35, 43, 45-47, 50,
63,
68, consisting of photographs and oversize documents were not treated, nor were
materials (mainly cards and printed matter) in boxes 183-196, 206-209, 239-250.

Other Nancy Wilson Ross materials are located in several other collections at the
HRC: Merle Armitage, Thomas Bertram Costain, Margaret Cousins, Morris Ernst,
Harpers, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and Charles Norman. Ross's personal library is
also
present, and can be accessed through the Collections File card catalog and/or
the
online catalog, UTCAT. Items withdrawn from these books are now located in the
HRC
Vertical File.